Makeup artist Napoleon Perdis has blamed falling foot traffic in his retail stores and rising costs for the need to call in administrators to restructure or sell his business, leaving hundreds of jobs in jeopardy.

More than 600 staff are employed by Mr Perdis’s eponymous makeup brand, which opened its first store in 1995 and has since expanded to 56 stores across the country.

Solvency and accounting firm Worrells has been appointed as voluntary administrator after the Napoleon Perdis directors failed to sell the business over the course of several months.

Mr Perdis told ABC News there is still demand for the brand through partner stores including Priceline and Terry White chemists, as well as its online store, but said the business must shrink its bricks-and-mortar footprint to ensure it survives.

For a couple of years now we’ve been trying to consolidate our retail structure and there’s been enormous costs,” he said.

Mr Perdis said he was unsure how many staff would lose their jobs but described it as a “family business” that would try to minimise the impact.

“If you estimate that we close 20 to 25 stores, there’s three staff per store on average, so close to 100 staff may need to be redeployed, however we’re looking to actually see whether we can place them in partner businesses like Priceline,” he said.

“It’s a huge learning curve. I didn’t start out as a boy from Parramatta, as a makeup artist, to create a huge business.”